2011: A Great Year for Shooters

This will be the first (of many, many) posts about video games.  Why?  Because I really like video games, and when I'm not pondering some greater mystery of existence, I'm either pondering this, movies, or anything else entertainment or pop-culture related.

The key word here is "culture."  Video games, movies, music and the like form the basis of what we can consider modern culture, and culture is one of the main issues regarding human existence.  But whatever, flimsy justification over, moving on.

2011 is shaping up to be an awesome year for first-person shooters.  Now, before I go further into this subject, I will say now that I will not be talking about the upcoming Call of Duty installment.  I am done with Call of Duty, period.  The series is at the point where it will only continue to stagnate without some drastic gameplay modification that will likely piss more fans off than increase confidence in the franchise.  That, and some of the ideas being thrown around by Activision are downright scary.

No, this is a year for shooters that aren't Call of Duty, Battlefield, or Halo for that matter, to enter the limelight and get some well-deserved attention.  What's interesting is that many of these are taking the self-aware insanity route, one that we haven't seen too far outside of "Painkiller" or "Serious Sam" for a while.  As for me, I love it.  I've grown sick of the modern-warfare pseudo-realistic shooters clogging up the modern game market, and it's nice to see some games aware of how insanely fun they are.

The main one that has stirred up a decent amount of discussion is "Duke Nukem Forever" (for reals).  Since the project has been taken over by Gearbox Software, it now has a release date (May 3), and has an announcement trailer that can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5svP9Wu0nk.  From what the trailer looks like, it will be one of the most self-aware, insane, hilarious, and downright fun shooters in recent history, coming to us courtesy of the king of self-aware, insane, hilarious, downright fun shooters, Duke Nukem.

Duke alone makes for an awesome year for the FPS, but there are even more out there.  Coming much sooner (February 22) is a game in the same ridiculously fun, over-the-top vein, Epic Games and People Can Fly's "Bulletstorm."  This may seem like a generic me-too of DNF, in the vein of "Dante's Inferno" last year.  Indeed, this may be the case, but that can only be determined once it releases, and judging by what we've seen of it, it is worth it to at least give this game a try.

It's definitely in good hands for the type of game it is billed to be.  Epic Games has given us "Unreal Tournament," a series of ridiculously fun, over-the-top first person shooters, and "Gears of War," a series of ridiculously fun, over-the-top third person shooters.  People Can Fly's past credit is for "Painkiller," a game many consider to be what "Doom 3" should have been, and are probably right.  All this, and the fact that the protagonist is voiced by Tank freaking Dempsay and one of the kill maneuvers is giving the enemy a good thorough .30-caliber enema, makes this game worth checking out.

One to watch out for later on in the year is Bethesda and Spash Damage's "Brink."  What word that has gotten out about this game definitely looks interesting.  It brings insane levels of character customization to the table, and I'm loving the cel-shady, "Borderlands"-esque art style.  It's also nice that another developer is experimenting with parkour mechanics after "Mirror's Edge" gave them a unsuccessful try.  Overall, looks like some good stuff.

Further off the insanity spectrum but still worth checking out is THQ and Kaos Studios' "Homefront."  I was perfectly willing to dismiss this as another game trying to get onto the modern warfare bandwagon, but the more I look into it, the more interesting it becomes.  Writing credits go to John Milius, the writer of war movie classics such as "Red Dawn" and "Apocalypse Now."  With that kind of talent, we can somewhat expect that this game will excel in the story department.  Details about gameplay also look promising, with multiplayer emphasizing use of all the tools of war, and an interesting item purchasing system akin to a more focused, streamlined, and updated version of the one in Counter-Strike.

What really got me interested, though, is that my mom brought it up.  A commercial came up on TV for it, and she thought that it looked like an interesting concept.  I know, I was shocked, too.  My mom expressing interest in a video game that wasn't made by Popcap, and a modern-warfare FPS at that.  This was just too strange to ignore.

So there you go, my abridged thoughts on each of the notable FPS titles coming out in 2011.  I will most likely go into more detail on each as they come out, and give you my thoughts if I get around to playing them.  The deluge of gaming-related posts has only just begun.